Posted January 26, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 6 Comments
There are lots of great desserts in the Little House books, but I had my heart set on snow candy from the very beginning.
This is one of the fastest and most rewarding recipes I’ve ever made. Start to finish, it doesn’t take more than 5-7 minutes, and the resulting maple candy is delicious. The version I made (a recipe from Happy Hooligans) is truthfully nothing more than boiled maple syrup, but there’s something about the chill from the snow and the texture from the few remaining snowflakes still clinging to the candy as you lay it on your tongue that just make it so darn satisfying. ^.^
This is a fun, quick snowy day recipe to make with kids. I highly recommend eating the candy straight off the snow, as it tends to go soft a few minutes after being removed from the snow (the melting snowflakes start to dissolve it).
NOTE: You’ll want to be careful to use “food safe” snow—clean snow that hasn’t been walked or touched by animals. We had a big snow the weekend I made this, and I went out while it was still snowing and gathered some fresh snow off our back porch railing. If you’re sending out kiddos to gather the snow, make sure they know a safe place to get it.
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Posted January 19, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 3 Comments
In the Little House books, many of the foods are simple and hearty, but they’re also a little unusual. You don’t see many people eating smoked venison or salt pork these days, and Johnny cake is even more rare. So I thought it would be fun to take some time to make a pioneer food that’s a little more familiar to modern palates: roasted sweet potatoes.
Like most Midwesterners, I’ve eaten sweet potatoes all my life, so it was fun for me to read about a food I recognized in the Little House books. In Little House on the Prairie, a friend brings some sweet potatoes to Christmas dinner, and the Ingalls family bakes them whole in the ashes of the fire. I wanted to make something a bit more involved that still remained true to the simple, natural way the Ingalls cooked, so I diced my potatoes and roasted them (skins still on) with a little salt, pepper, garlic, and fresh thyme.
The end result was a hearty dish perfect for a pioneer kitchen! 🙂
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Posted January 12, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 10 Comments
Today’s post is more of a technique than a recipe, but it’s one I’ve been wanting to try for months now! 🙂
This past weekend, I got to do something super fun and pioneer-y: I made smoked venison! When my brother got his first deer this year while hunting with my dad, I begged for a hindquarter steak to use on the blog, since nothing could be more perfect for a Little House on the Prairie menu than smoked venison. 🙂
Then I called up my friends David and Gina, who were kind enough to let me use their smoker. I’ve included details about our process below. Enjoy! 🙂
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Posted January 10, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 3 Comments
There are lots of classic, All-American desserts mentioned in the Little House books, but when I decided to make a tea for the series, I couldn’t get Ma’s pies off the brain. Dried apple pies are a specialty of hers that stood out to me, so I chose it as the theme for my tea! I chose one of my favorite rooibos blends from Adagio (Rooibos Cinnamon Apple) as my base, adding cream, apples, and spice to make the flavor more unique. The result was a tea that conjures of the cozy scent and taste of a winter day bundled up at home. Enjoy!
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Posted January 5, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 14 Comments
Welcome to our very first menu of 2017! I’m proud to announce that our new Book of the Month will be Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books.
I love all the hearty frontier food featured in the books—smoked venison, corn cakes, snow candy, and so much more! One food that stuck out to me in the Little House books was “johnny cake.” I’d never heard of it before, but the Ingalls family eats it while traveling to their new homestead, so it sounded like perfect pioneer food.
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Posted January 3, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Reading Kits / 3 Comments
Howdy, folks! Our new Book of the Month (or rather, book series of the month) is the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I’ll start posting recipes based on the books on Thursday, but today we’re starting the month off with a Little House reading kit!
I always have fun planning reading kits, but I had a particularly good time making this one. I LOVED playing pioneers as a kid, so when I decided to make a Little House kit, it totally sent me back to my childhood. I kept thinking of things I would’ve loved to have while reading the books as a kid!
Of course, that now gives me the unique problem of reeeeeeeally wanting to buy all this stuff for myself. But is that even really a problem? I mean, I can just tell everyone I’m being cultured, and they’ll accept that as a TOTALLY legit answer, right? Please say yes…
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